The Artist

I'm not greatly surprised to hear that some people who went to see the film "The Artist" asked for their money back when they found that it was a silent movie. Not because it's a poor film but that it was silent. They don't make silent films any more. When you go to the cinema these days you expect to see a "talkie". How is it possible to suspend your disbelief in a silent film? You cannot. Suspending one's disbelief comes with seeing something in a familiar form - watching "Coronation Street" for example; you get to know the characters and believe, in a strange sort of way, that they are real people. When an unfamiliar form of a film comes along you do not see it as being real. Thus with "The Artist": film-makers don't make silent films any more so this one becomes attractive (to some people) because it's a gimmick, it's novel. It is not stretching the form of films so that new insights into the art form (if it is an art form) are discovered. No new insights arrive with "The Artist". Nothing new, only novel.
When films were made in the silent era, only silent films were made - obviously. Silent films were the accepted form for films and people "willingly suspended their disbelief" to watch them. "The Artist" is a spoof of silent films as they then were and can't be taken seriously, neither as a work of art or as entertainment, except in the respect that it is a spoof.
It's a very well produced spoof, acted exceedingly well with a plot that is brilliant in its use of both silence and sound. But it's a gimmicky thing; it's also a one-off.
I recall Robert Montgomery making "The Lady in the Lake" in which he played Phillip Marlowe from behind the camera as if the camera was his eyes and ears; you only saw him in a mirror or two. It worked OK but it was, to my knowledge, never repeated. Neither was a sound film with no talk in it made by Ray Milland (acted and directed). All one-offs.
It seems that "The Artist" is going to win many oscars tonight but I don't think it should on artistic merit. I would have picked "Drive"but that's not even nominated.